


The Truth

by sofia_gigante



Series: Questions and Answers [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, Confessions, Death from Old Age, F/M, Family, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, Marriage, Past Infidelity, Sad, life goes on - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-25
Updated: 2015-06-25
Packaged: 2018-04-06 04:24:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4207815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sofia_gigante/pseuds/sofia_gigante
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“I’m not waking up from this one, am I?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Probably not.”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Then there’s something I have to tell you.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Truth

**Author's Note:**

> The epilogue--the third and final part of the arc began with [The Question](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4182996) and [The Answer](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4201095).

“Hurry up, Andrew!”

“Dad, I push any faster and I’ll be running.”

“Then run!”

Arthur’s son complied, and Arthur’s wheelchair zipped down the hospital hallway. They got some strange looks from the nurses, but Arthur only gave them a serene smile as he went past. It was easy to play the part of the eccentric old man when you had years of experience.

They reached the room in record time. Good. They were going to need every second they could get.

“Now lock the door.”

“There’s no lock, Dad.”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “Then put one of the chairs in front. And draw the curtain around the bed.”

God. You’d think this was Andrew’s first operation.

Well. He supposed it was.

Andrew did as he was ordered, and then Arthur snapped his fingers. Or at least tried to. Mostly his spotted, arthritic hand just shook. Andrew understood though, and he carefully pulled the silver briefcase from under Arthur’s wheelchair. It had been his idea to tape it to the underside of the seat, where no one would see it. Arthur had been impressed. That was clever thinking.

Just like his father.

Arthur was already trying to roll up the sleeve of his sweater. He would’ve asked Andrew for help, but he was busy with the PASIV device, now laid open on the table beside the bed.

“All right. Are the canisters secure?”

“Yes.”

“The lines in tight?”

“Yes.”

“Is the dosage set?”

Andrew tapped a few buttons. “Yes.”

“Good. Now hook me up.”

Andrew looked at his father, concern swimming in his coffee-dark eyes. Ariadne’s eyes.  “Dad, you sure this is a good idea? The doctors said—”

“Fuck the doctors!” Arthur barked. He scooted forward, reaching for the PASIV. “I’ll do it myself if you won’t—”

“All right, all right Dad!” Andrew sighed. He looked up nervously to the little window, then back down at the machine. He winced as he held the needle to Arthur’s arm, the flesh papery thin. Andrew’s hand shook a bit, but his aim was true. He taped down the needle.

“Good. Now do your Pop.”

Andrew turned to the motionless figure on the bed. Braden was already strapped in to a dozen tubes leading to a dozen machines, each one only prolonging the inevitable.

Cancer. After all he’d survived, everything they’d gone through…it was fucking lung and throat cancer that would finish him off.

Braden didn’t even flinch as Andrew slid the needle into his arm. He hadn’t responded to anything in days, not a word, not a touch, not a plea. It was a matter of time, now, of making him “more comfortable.”

Only Arthur knew what would make Braden really “comfortable” now.  

“All right. Keep watch by the door. If one of the nurses come in, try to stall, but if we timed this right, we’ll have five minutes before they check on him.”

“Which gives you an hour down there,” Andrew said.

“Good boy.” Arthur smiled. His son had been listening to all their crazy old stories after all. “Hit it.”

Andrew’s finger hesitated. “When you find him…tell him I love him.”

That sad little smile. God, it was going to break Arthur’s heart every day now, wasn’t it?

“He knows, Drew, but I’ll tell him.”

Then all went dark and quiet, the familiar coast of oblivion as the Somnacin flowed into his system. He prayed he’d gotten the dosage right. With his medications—not to mention Braden’s—if he fucked this up it wouldn’t mean Limbo, it’d mean the end. Which honestly, at this point, was moot, but it would mean he’d be robbed of this…

His chance to say good-bye.

The Oahu sun warmed his old skin, the salty tang of the sea tickled his nose. He hadn’t been to Hawaii in years. Not since their twentieth wedding anniversary.

He knew where to find Braden here. It’s why he constructed it for them. He wouldn’t have to hunt. Braden would just know where to be.

In fact, he was there already.

Arthur walked slowly—because in his dreams, Arthur could still walk—towards the crop of smooth rocks, towards the figure facing the water.

As he approached, his husband turned and looked up him with both eyes, his face as whole and young and handsome as it had been the first time Arthur had met him. He guessed by the smile that touched Braden’s lip that Arthur was just as young, just as whole.

“Hello, Eames.” It slipped out, as naturally as breathing.

Eames smiled. “You haven’t called me that in years.”

Arthur shrugged, feeling oddly shy. “Thought it would help to hear your actual name.”

“It does.”

Thanks to the cancer, it’d been years since he’d heard his voice like this, smooth and accented and calm. He sat down beside him on the rock, enjoying the solid warmth of Eames pressing against him.

“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” Eames asked.

“Yes.”

“Mine or yours?”

“Ours.” Arthur took Eames’ hand in his, looked out at the sunset. “Thought we could both use a little sun.”

“It’s lovely. It was the best damn moment of my life.”

“Mine, too.”

They were silent, unsure what to say.

“I’m not waking up from this one, am I?” Eames asked quietly.

Arthur’s heart twisted. His fingers tightened around Eames’. “Probably not.”

Eames took a deep, shaky breath. “Then there’s something I have to tell you.”

Arthur shook his head. “No. Don’t waste—”

“Andrew’s not your son.” It blurts out, pushed out by years of pressure, of silence, of guilt. “He’s mine.”

Arthur turned his head to look at Eames. “Braden—”

“I forged the documents! Before his fifth birthday. I opened the fucking envelope.” Eames couldn’t look at him. Tears were sparkling at the rims of his blue-grey eyes. “I saw…I saw and…I couldn’t let you see.”

Decades. He’d held this secret for decades.

“Why?” Arthur asked quietly.

“Because….because, after everything you’d gone through, everything I’d done…I couldn’t take him from you, too.” Tears coursed down his cheeks, and he didn’t bother wiping them away. “I stole our life together, Arthur! I didn’t mean to, but, I stole this life with you from _her_. From Ariadne. I couldn’t steal him to, not when I knew what it would mean to you, knowing your boy wasn’t legit—”

Arthur grabbed the back of Eames’ head, and silenced him with a long, hard kiss. Eames stiffened in his arms before sagging, letting himself be comforted. Arthur pulled away, and gave his husband a small, sad smile.

“I know.” Arthur said.

“You know?”

“I’ve known for years.”

Eames’ eyes widened, his jaw went slack. “How did…”

“I’m not blind, Braden!” Arthur chuckled. “He looks just fucking like you!”

“But the picture I gave you…”

Arthur shrugged, suddenly uncomfortable. “That…that was hard. It took me a long time to admit it was a fake. I wanted it to be real. But…I know you. How you think. How you work. One last forgery, one last job.”

“I’m so sorry.”

Eames was shaking in Arthur’s arms, and Arthur placed another soft kiss on his cheek. 

“It’s all right. I knew who you were when I married you.”

“A con man and a thief?”

“My best friend.”

Eames closed his eyes, and Arthur could practically see the decades of guilt, of secrecy falling away from him. When he opened his eyes, they were clear. At peace.

 “You going to tell him?” Eames finally asked.

“Do you want me to?”

Eames considered for a long moment. “No. He’s gone this long thinking…I…I don’t want to hurt him.”

 “You sure?”

“He knows I love him. That’s enough.”

A lump rose in Arthur’s throat. “He said to tell you he loves you, too.”

They held each other for a long, long time, trying not to think, trying to just be.

“You think it’s going to be like waking up?” Eames asked quietly.

“Maybe.”

“No. You won’t be there.”

“Maybe I will be.”

“Don’t say that. Andrew still needs you.”

“Andrew will be just fine. He’s got Linda, the kids. He doesn’t need us anymore.”

“He’ll always have us.” Eames looked up suddenly. There was a strange light in his eyes that made Arthur’s heart lurch. “You’ll always have me.”

Arthur reached up, touched Eames face. It’d been so long since they’d been this young together.

“If you see her…say hello.” Arthur whispered.

“That I will, love.” Eames swallowed hard. “I’ll tell her what a good man her boy grew into.”

“Just like his father.”

“Yeah. Just like _you_.”

Eames rested his head on Arthur’s shoulder, and together, they watched the waves roll in, roll out...

And then Arthur was alone.

He stared down at his empty hand for a long, long time. His gold wedding band shone in the last rays of sunset.

Eventually, from down the beach, a tall figure walked towards him.

His heart stopped.

Eames.

He was still here.

The figure got closer.

No. Not Eames.

Andrew.

“Hey Dad.”

He sat down on the rock besides Arthur, put a strong arm around him.

“It’s time for you to come back.”

Arthur didn’t say anything, simply stared out at the sea.

“You could’ve just cancelled the timer.” He finally croaked.

“I know. I thought this would be better.”

Arthur turned, and looked at his son. He really was the perfect blend of the two people he’d loved most in his life.

The two people who were now gone.

“I know this is hard, Dad, but, please. I need you to come back with me.”

Arthur stared out at the sea. If he drowned here, would he follow Eames? Would he see Ariadne? Would they all be together again, young and happy, like in a dream?

“Pop wouldn’t want you to stay here like this. He’d want you to come back with me.”

And there it was. The truth.

Arthur slowly stood, every ache and pain in his body returning. He was old again, crooked. He rested his hand on Andrew’s arm, leaning hard against him as let himself be walked away from the crop of rocks.

“How was he?” Andrew asked, his voice quivering. He was trying to stay strong for his Dad.

“His old self,” Arthur took a deep, shaky breath. The ghost of a smile touched his lips, bittersweet as a last kiss. “Fucking Eames.”

****

The funeral had been lovely. At least that’s what everyone had said to Andrew. A lovely funeral for a lovely man.

“We’re so sorry.”

“He’s at peace.”

“At least they’re together now.”

The wake was over. The mourners were gone. Linda and their daughter Shelley were in the kitchen, cleaning up the last of the dishes. He could hear Mike in the living room, quietly making a call. That son of his, always working. But that was the life of an FBI agent for you.

Andrew sat alone on the bed in the master bedroom.  He looked around the room, the old photos on the walls of the places his parents had traveled—Paris, Rome, Rio, Hawaii.

 It hadn’t changed much since he’d left home decades before, when he’d gone off to Oxford. He had always intended to come back to New York, but then life had happened. He’d studied, traveled, and fallen in love. After he married, he’d decided to settle down closer to Linda’s tight-knit family in Portland. They’d come back to New York for holidays, for a week in the summer, more after the kids were born. By then, his two-story house in Portland had become home. This place, this house was _theirs_ , even if it was in Andrew’s name. This was his fathers’ house.

And now they were both gone.

He began packing up the room in the banker boxes Mike had brought from work. He began sorting—things to keep, things to throw, things to give away. After a half hour, there were only a few things in the give-away box, and nothing to throw away.

He came to his Dad’s bedside table. There wasn’t much in there, just a bunch of medication bottles and a battered, old cigar box. He put the medications in the throw-away pile, and then pulled out the box.

It rattled.

He looked around before opening it, feeling as guilty as he had been whenever he’d snoop around as a boy. He’d always found the most fascinating things in his father’s hiding places, though—passports with their faces and different names, schematics for buildings that could never exist in reality, neatly bundled stacks of cash in currencies he couldn’t identify. He’d grown up thinking his parents were spies.

The truth had been so much more fascinating.

There wasn’t anything so dramatic in the cigar box, though. The rattling had been an old, red die bouncing against a worn poker chip. Weird. There was more: a creased envelope, still sealed, a folded photocopy of an ancient Wisconsin driver’s license, a black velvet ring box holding only a thin, gold chain. He suspected he knew where the ring was—on Linda’s finger.

His dad had said he’d had the perfect ring when he had told him he was going to propose to her.

He was about to put the box down when he eye caught the hint of a red ribbon poking up from the bottom…

The false bottom.

He pulled the ribbon, and up came the flap of plywood. At the real bottom of the box was a tiny data disk, the type used to share files between those new personal data readers.

Now _this_ was some James Bond shit.

Andrew pulled his device of his pocket, and fumbled with sliding the disk in the port. There was only one file on the disk. An audio file.

With his heart hammering, he turned it on.

“Hey there, champ.”

It wasn’t his Dad.

It was his Pop.

He hadn’t heard his voice in years, not since the cancer had stolen it from him, long before it had stolen his Pop from Andrew five year ago.

“I…I hate using these things, so I’m going to keep it short.” He cleared his throat, and Andrew could already hear the rasp of the cancer closing in on his voice. “I don’t know how long I have. Could be a few years, could be a few months. But… there’s some things you need to know, and I doubt I’m going to have the courage to tell you while I’m alive. So. Here goes.”

Andrew held his breath.

Silence stretched on for almost ten seconds.

“Bloody hell, I can’t do this.”

The recording went quiet.

What? That…that was it?

Andrew’s heart squeezed so hard he could barely breathe.

_What did you need to tell me, Pop? You’re really a spy working for British Intelligence? You have debts to dangerous people who are going to come after me and my family now? You used to be a woman? What?_

“Andrew.”

Andrew’s head came up as a second voice floated through the speaker—his Dad. The recording hadn’t ended after all.

“I almost didn’t put in that first part. But I thought it would help to hear that he’d tried. He tried to tell you.”

_Tell me WHAT?_

“It’s a long story, son, too long to tell over one of these things. The only thing you really need to know is that I love you, your Pop loved you, and your mother loved you, even though she only got to see you once.”

 Andrew felt tears prick his eyes. His Dad had never talked about his mom. Ever.

“You know we all had a…a past. That past included some things we weren’t proud of. That past also gave us you, Andrew.” His Dad sighed, and he could hear the fatigue in his voice. “God, no wonder Braden couldn’t tell you.”

Silence stretched so long that Andrew thought the recording was over.

“Braden Eames is your real father.”

Andrew’s entire world froze, his heart stopped beating.

“Don’t…don’t be angry at him. I’m not. I understand why he hid it from me, from you. He didn’t do it to hurt us. He did it out of love. He loved you, Andrew, from the moment he saw you. He just didn’t know how to show it at first.”

Andrew remembered so very little of his early childhood. He knew his Pop hadn’t been around much, how he’d loved his surprise visits, his little gifts. He vaguely remembered when “Unc” had become “Pop,” when he stayed for good. But, Pop had always been part of his life, as far back as Andrew could remember.

Andrew looked up at his reflection in the dresser mirror. The same full lips, the same sandy blond hair, the same shape of the eyebrows. He was even tall and broad-chested, like the pictures of his Pop before the cane. Nowhere could he find a trace of his lean, hawkish Dad, except the dark eyes.

He’d always thought he’d had his father’s eyes.

“I know he wanted to keep it a secret, but I…I couldn’t leave without knowing you knew the truth. You deserved as much.” Another sigh. “I love you, Andrew. I’m proud of the man you are, the family you’ve raised. I know your Pop was, too, and if your mother could’ve see you…” His voice trailed off, and Andrew could hear his struggle to compose himself. “Take care, my boy.”

Then the recording was done. Silence filled the little room.

He didn’t realize he was crying until his tears fell on the screen of the device, his sobs rising in his throat. He tried to stifle them, lest his family heard him, but it was no use. Everything that had been bottled up in the past few years finally came pouring out—the stress, the exhaustion, the fear, the grief. He cried for his mother, for himself, for his Dad.

For his Pop.

His biological father, who had been too afraid to ever tell him the truth.

“Dad?”

“Yeah, champ?” Andrew swiped his tears away viciously with the back of his hand before looking up at Mike. There—there was the dark hair and lean physique he’d assumed came from his Dad.

Guess it was from Linda’s side of the family.

Or his own mother’s.

Mike started. “You haven’t called me that in years.”

Andrew shrugged, feeling oddly shy. He hated letting his son see him this way. “Sorry. Should I be calling you Agent Graiden, now?”

Mike snorted, looked away. For a second, Andrew thought he was going to leave.

Instead, he joined him on the bed. They sat in silence for a long time.

“What’s that?” Mike asked gently. He reached into the cigar box and pulled out the red die.

“Don’t know,” Andrew admitted. He hefted the poker chip. It felt smooth and solid in his hand, like it belonged there. 

Mike rolled the die around in his fingers for a moment, and went to drop it back in the box.

“You can keep it, if you want.” Andrew said, surprising himself. “I don’t think grandpa would mind.”

He felt suddenly stupid. Of all the things in the house—the electronics, the travel artifacts, the family mementos—he was offering his son an old die?

Mike considered for a moment, and then closed his hand around it. “Thanks.”

Andrew nodded, and looked down at the poker chip in his hand. He doubted his Dad would mind if he kept this one for himself.

“So, if I help you clean this room, how much evidence do you think I’ll find?”

It was Andrew’s turn to snort. It always struck him as ironic that Mike was a rising star in the FBI’s new Somni-crimes division. The lucid dreaming skills ran in the family, he supposed.

“Not as much as you think you will,” Andrew gave him a crafty little smile. “Your grandparents were always good at covering their tracks.”

Mike smiled back, just as sly. “You’d be surprised what secrets people can leave lying around, just waiting to be found.”

Andrew looked down at the device in his hand, at the truth he’d just uncovered…

The truth that deep down, he’d known. Andrew had always known.

“I suppose you’re right.” He took a deep, shaky breath and pocketed the device, along with the secret. He studied his son—handsome, dark, smart, clever.

Perfect.

“Mike?”

“Hmmm?”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, Dad.”


End file.
